


The Warrior-maiden

by Roadstergal



Category: Der Ring des Nibelungen | The Ring of the Nibelung - Wagner
Genre: Armor, Battle, Dubious Consent, Dubious Morality, Dysfunctional Family, F/F, F/M, Feminist Themes, Fire, Friendship/Love, Gen, M/M, Masochism, Mind Control, Pain, Rivers, Sadism, Sisters, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-12
Updated: 2016-12-12
Packaged: 2018-09-08 05:35:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 3,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8832421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roadstergal/pseuds/Roadstergal
Summary: Brünnhilde, the warrior-maiden, falls from such a great height to be merely the wife of a mortal. This will not stand.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cefyr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cefyr/gifts).



> I loved your prompt, and really wanted to dig more into Brünnhilde's story, to fill in some of her back story and motivations. She's one of the best characters in all of opera. She has some wonderful family and friendship relationships to explore.
> 
> I apologize for the dubcon/noncon and the character death at the end, but it's unfortunately somewhere on the spectrum from explicitly canon to my read on canon...

"You need to stop bothering mother.  It makes her upset." Ortlinde twisted a lock of her ruddy-blonde hair around a finger.

Brünnhilde slapped Ortlinde's hand away. It bothered her to see her sisters exhibiting anxiety. It was beneath them!  "I'm just asking a few questions."  There was so much to know, after all.  Where the sky came from, why the roots of trees dug so deeply and sweetly into the earth, why the brightly-colored bridge shone only after a rain, the words of the songbirds.  "She knows everything, so why won't she tell me?"

"Because you're a silly little girl, and don't know what to do with information.  Keep moving." The little red man smiled down at Brünnhilde in a way she didn't like at all.  So she did the opposite of what she had been ordered to – she stopped, crossing her arms across her chest. It didn't matter that mother had told them to obey this little man - she had refused to answer Brünnhilde 's questions of where they were going and why, and that simply was not fair.

"Where are you taking us?" she demanded.

The man stopped with a sigh, the clothes that seemed to be partly _of_ his body fluttering about him, floating like embers. "You'll find out soon."

"No.  I won't move until you tell me."  She watched as the little man came closer, and grabbed his arm once he was in range, twisting.  "Don't you touch me - I know how to defend myself, little man!"

"Loge," he growled, pulling away and rubbing his shoulder.  "My name is Loge.  I'm a half-god, so be wary of how you treat me."

"You’re a pathetic excuse for a god," she sniffed.

Loge sighed. "I'm taking you to your father.  Without his orders, I’d leave you alone in the woods. Running his silly errands, dealing with spoiled little girls..."

"I'm not spoiled." She stuck her nose up at him defiantly.  "I just wanted to know where we were going.  Now, lead on.  I want to meet my father." Their father! Another subject their mother would not address. Brünnhilde was not stupid – she had seen that the beasts of the field and the birds in the trees had mothers and fathers, so why should she and her sisters be any different? Why would her mother never speak of him? Was her father shameful, or small?

"You are certainly his daughter," Loge grumbled, turning.  "This way.  It's a long walk, and I'm not stopping for stragglers."

Brünnhilde smiled and fell into line behind the man.  She could run faster than the shy deer in the woods, she could walk for days without tiring.  He would fall before her.


	2. Chapter 2

The hall was dank and dim, the floor covered with wet, moldering straw, the ceiling disappearing into darkness above, fed by oily smoke from the fires at either end.

Father had forbidden Brünnhilde and her sisters from coming to the Great Hall. She was supposed to be in bed along with them - but her curiosity would not allow her to sleep, poking at her, pulling her out here, such a potent desire to see what she had not yet seen!

She skirted the edges of the hall, drinking in the sights - wild gods and demi-gods, beards thick and shoulders broad, swearing and drinking and fighting, their tree-trunk legs smashing their boots into the ground. The smells of mold, sweat, scorched meat, and blood assaulted her nose. She shivered, partly from fear, partly from excitement.

"You should be in bed, little one," a voice said in her ear, a voice that snapped more merrily than the flames in the great fireplaces.

Brünnhilde stood her ground - she did not jump or otherwise show surprise. "Father did not make you my nursemaid," she told Loge, haughtily.

"He told me to look after you." Loge slid into a sitting position, and the heat of his red body made the damp straw start to smolder. "You, specifically. Your sisters are more obedient."

"I want to see." She waved. "Like you - you can go wherever you want, see whatever you want. Why can't I?"

"Because you're going to grow into a woman.  Your father needs to keep you” – his lip twisted, as if searching for words, “pure, untouched, until you're ready to be married off."

“Married? That sounds horrid,” Brünnhilde sniffed. A wife? Like Fricka? What a dull life, looking after the hearths and fires and kitchens! Mistress of the clothes-washers!

Loge spread his hands. "It's the rules. _Your father’s_ rules."

"Well." She stood and jutted out her chin. "I don’t like them. So I’ll have him break them for me. He will, I’m his favorite." It wasn’t bragging, it was a simple statement of fact. In the years they had been living under his roof, several facts had become clear to the sisters. Wotan adored them and treated them with brusque but sturdy love, taking them carefully escorted trips around the castle grounds, giving them fine little jennies and teaching them to ride, bringing them beautiful trinkets and jaw-dropping tales from his adventures. Fricka hated them, no matter how deferential they were to her – even sweet Roßweiße! – and they had learned to avoid her and clean after themselves, discovering that the more she could pretend they did not exist, the happier she was.  And lastly, that Brünnhilde was Wotan’s favorite.

Loge laughed. “I wish to be there when you tell him.  These are laws he made for Fricka, and they are not so readily tossed aside…”

"Who is this pretty little wench?" a voice boomed from above. "A fine little plaything for me. Come, girl..." A hand emerged from the dark figure above, hairy and inelegant, open sores on the knuckle and palm, grasping for Brünnhilde’s red, curly hair.

An immediate feeling of revulsion washed over Brünnhilde. She did not think, she _acted_ \- she grabbed that vile hand, twisting, tugging, using all of her strength and her weight, and the feeling of satisfaction as the hairy obscenity of a man flew through the air and hit the stone wall was profound.

"What is this, now?" The voice behind her was deep and measured, commanding. “I told you to look after my daughters, Loge.”

“I’m looking right now,” Loge replied, cheekily, gesturing. “Ho, there she is.”

Brünnhilde looked down with a resigned sigh. "I'm sorry, father," she said quietly, but firmly. "It’s my fault. He tried to take me back, but I was bored in my room."

Wotan's strong, scarred finger tilted Brünnhilde's head upwards until she looked directly into his lean, bearded face. His lone eye considered her, looked through her, drew out of her the respect she owed to nobody else. "Then we will find more fitting entertainment for you than these men," he said finally, thoughtfully.  "Go to your room, go to bed, and tomorrow, we will make preparations." He glanced at Loge. "And you will help."


	3. Chapter 3

“Is she in trouble?” Helmwige hissed when Loge opened the door, his body dimly illuminating the room.

“You’re supposed to be asleep, so you’re disobeying father, too!” Brünnhilde retorted, jumping into their large bed.

“You’re all in trouble,” Loge sighed. “And so I have to stay here all night and watch you.”

“Oh, how you hate it!” Siegrune laughed, bouncing out of bed and dancing around Loge in naught but her shift. “Surrounded by girls all night... we will keep you awake until the cocks crow!”

“I perhaps hate it both more and less than you think.” Loge was successfully hiding a smile, Brünnhilde thought. He sat on the glowing embers of the fire, sighing with pleasure at the heat of the coals. “Do what you will, but stay in this room, or I will fetch Fricka.”

Siegrune flounced back into bed with a sigh. “You _are_ cruel!”

“She hates us,” Ortlinde grumbled next to Brünnhilde. None of her sisters, it was clear, was asleep. They must have been gossiping while she was gone. And yet, none had dared to go with her to the Great Hall! Their disobedience had such arbitrary limits. “And she hates Father, too. Why are they married?”

“It must be a magic spell,” Helmwige mused.

“A ring?” Waltraute mused. “Or a belt?”

“Or a poisoned draught,” Schwertleite mused.  “We should fix this!”

“Loge,” Brünnhilde said, slipping out of bed again.  “You’re the master of tricks.  How is she doing it? _Why_ is she doing it?”

“It’s no trick,” Loge noted. “Or, rather, the worst trick of all.  Love.”

“Love?” Brünnhilde wrinkled her nose.  “I thought love was supposed to be a beautiful thing.” She loved her sisters, after all, and they loved her and each other, and Wotan loved them all.  None of them acted in these strange, hateful ways!

“Perhaps, ‘twixt kin. But the love of a couple is something altogether less sensible.  There can be a dark joy in the other’s pain, or a dark fear that leads to cruelty.”

“Horrible!  How do you fix it?” Ortlinde asked from the bed, fascinated, her eyes glittering in Loge’s glow.

“Ask me questions that gods greater than I cannot answer!” Loge laughed.  “I merely avoid it.”

“Then we will, too,” Brünnhilde stated, firmly.  “It will never come between me and my sisters!”

“Let us vow!” Ortlinde said, jumping out of bed. “We must never fall in love.  Let us stay true to each other!”

Mutters and murmurs of agreement spread amongst the bed, and all nine girls formed a circle, and hands clasped in the center.

“We vow to hold each other above any mere man,” Brünnhilde stated.  “We vow never to allow love to rip us asunder, only bind us firmly together.”

“We vow this!” her sisters said, and their lusty voices and sturdy hands clasping hers warmed her very soul.


	4. Chapter 4

“I will fight you!” Ortlinde grasped a sturdy reed from the thick growth next to the rude path, swinging it at Helmwige.

“Prepare to meet thy doom, then!” Helmwige dodged the swing, gleefully grasping a reed of her own and swinging it back at Ortlinde.

Wotan stopped and turned back. Brünnhilde expected him to take their toys and chastise them for the delay, but instead, he crouched behind Helmwige and corrected her grip.  “Here, like this.  This is how you grasp a sword.  And do not swing so wildly – look to parry or dodge, then land a maiming blow to slow her…”

The other seven sisters gathered, listening with great interest to Wotan’s tuition. Noticing their interest, he paired them off with each other to practice fighting.  Brünnhilde, he paired with himself, and her heart swelled with pride and excitement as she fought and learned with her father.

Loge watched, irritated, circling, pacing, until he finally interjected. “We cannot linger and still make it to Mime’s hut before nightfall.”

“This is time well spent. Find us a site to camp and tell him we will be there tomorrow,” Wotan ordered.

“He has been waiting,” Loge grumbled, but flickered out obediently to run the errand.


	5. Chapter 5

The group of sisters was noticeably better-behaved the next day, due entirely to fatigue and the soreness of little-used muscles. Wotan graced them with a rare smile as they trotted obediently behind him, rubbing arms and shoulders ruefully.

“We must practice more, to be good at this,” Brünnhilde noted, and her sisters nodded and murmured agreement.

“I want to be as good as father’s heroes,” Schwertleite said.

“Better than his heroes!” Gerhilde added, and the girls laughed in agreement.

“You will be,” Wotan said. “Better.  The fiercest warriors the world has seen.”

“The fiercest Mime has seen all day, I’m sure,” Loge noted, pushing some brush aside that had been stacked rudely, a poor attempt at camouflage. The hut behind it was small, but of sturdy and clean construction; the forge next to it practically dwarfed the hut, however, and Brünnhilde wandered over to stare at it with fascination – the bellows, the coals, the anvil, the molds, the quenching bucket… a hammer every bit as large as Donner’s intrigued her, and she walked over to lift it.

Loge’s hand almost burnt her shoulder, and she jumped back, startled. “Do not touch a man’s tools without permission, girl.”

Brünnhilde looked over at Wotan, but he was walking to the hut, banging on the door so hard it shook.  “Dwarf! We are here!”

The door cracked open, and two eyes glittered in the darkness. “Just you?  There are no others here? No Niebelungs?” a small, querulous voice asked.

“Why would you object to the presence of your kind?” Wotan asked with mild curiosity.

“I have been tainted by my brother,” came the bitter reply. “I am not welcome in Niebelheim.  Why do you think I live here, where the sun and moon pain my eyes?”

Wotan shrugged this off as tangential. “There are no Niebelungs here, only gods and half-gods.”

The door opened slightly wider, still not enough for Brünnhilde to see inside.  “You did not say you would bring so many with you.”

“They must be present for the sizing. The sooner you start, the sooner we will leave you in peace.”

A little man, dwarfish in stature, his back hunched, eased himself nervously out of the door. He counted the curious girls standing around, and his eyes widened.  “Nine?”

“Yes. Nine.” Wotan walked over to a stump near the forge and sat, somehow majestic even with that lazy gesture.  “Start with that one,” he pointed to little Roßweiße – “and end with that one.” He pointed to Brünnhilde.

The dwarf watched Wotan anxiously, then nodded and beckoned with surprisingly long, elegant fingers at Roßweiße. “Come here, girl.” He fussed around with string and cloth, marking spots on Roßweiße’s head, chest, waist, legs, in a way that swiftly bored her sisters.  They broke up into little melees, practicing the skills Wotan had taught them the previous day, pairing and repairing, learning from each other, giggling at the scrapes and bruises they accumulated.

“Sisters!” Roßweiße ran towards them, laughing with delight, the sun glistening off of the beautiful silvery suit of armor she wore, helmet and breastplate and gauntlets and greaves. “Look, see what father has given me!”  Her sisters dropped their reeds and ran to her, running their hands over the finely crafted metal, delighting at how fierce she looked, crying in admiration as she drew a fine, sharp sword.

Ortlinde ran to the little man to have her own armor made, and Brünnhilde followed, more interested now in the process.  The dwarf once again brought out his measuring tools, determining length and girth of her head, her neck, her chest, her legs and arms, painstaking work that made Brünnhilde want to chew on her own hair with impatience.

When the dwarf started the bellows, however – that was something to behold. She had seen heroes try to entice Loge in the past, in the fire-pit in the great hall – beckoning, coaxing, breathing – but never with as much intensity and care.  The dwarf’s clever fingers built a little pile of kindling, sweet treats for the fire-god, and breathed on them with reverence that tickled strange feelings in Brünnhilde.  Loge came to him, nibbling on the wood, heating and growing, and then began to lick and nibble at the dwarf’s fingers. _It surely must cause pain_ , Brünnhilde noted, but the dwarf did not recoil; he continued to feed and encourage Loge to brighten his forge, staring into the flames with what looked like love. _There can be a dark joy in the other’s pain…_

The sun was dipping low in the sky when it was finally Brünnhilde’s turn.  She stood, stretching her arms out to let the dwarf measure her.

“Make hers stronger,” Wotan noted, standing nearby. “Heavier than her sisters’.  She is strong – I want her stronger.  She will be a great warrior.”

The dwarf nodded obediently, and Brünnhilde’s heart swelled with pride and love.  She would be a great warrior.  She would make Wotan proud with her great deeds and matchless valor!

Even the weight of the armor, causing her to stagger in her sisters’ wake, could not fully quench her excitement.


	6. Chapter 6

She was alone.

She had never been alone before. Her sisters had always been there with her, nearby if not present, the eternal constant in her life, and their absence was a deafening, frightening void.  No sisters.  No father. No mother.

There had been a man. She had been awakened, wobbly-legged and brain-fogged from sleep, and from… more than that.  She blinked, shaking her head.  Her armor was gone, her horse and her sword.  She played with a ring now on her finger.  It was heavy and cold.

 _She is finally awake_.  Loge’s voice crackled in her mind as the flames danced around her.

“Yes…” She blinked, shaking her head. “I can’t think.”

 _No. The spell has made you love_.

“Oh…” She looked around, trying to remember. Something about love.  Heroes.  Sisters.  Why was it so hard to think?  “Why am I still here, then?  I have been…  awakened?”

 _Not taken or consummated, little girl. That is why I am still enslaved_.

“Taken.” Brünnhilde stared into the ring on her hand, warming from her skin, reflecting Loge’s dancing flames.  “We will be free… when I am taken?”

 _A delicious irony_ …

“Sister!”

Brünnhilde looked up at the woman who leapt into the circle.  She was a stunning warrior, muscular and powerful, fully armored, a wicked sword by her side.  It was the sort of woman she should be – should it not?  This was not a woman to be taken or owned.

“Sister? Do you not recognize Waltraute?”

Memories battered at Brünnhilde’s fogged brain. “My sister.  You – you have come to take me back?” To be a wild warrior again?  To sit on Wotan’s knee?

Waltraute fell to her knees and grasped Brünnhilde’s hands. Brünnhilde blinked in astonishment and confusion. “My beloved sister, it has been so long.  We are disorganized and lost without you.  Wotan thinks only of you, lonely and broken on his throne, lost and desperate. “  Her finger touched the ring on Brünnhilde’s hand, and she pulled her hands away. “You must get rid of it and throw it away!  Oh, my sister, it is accursed, and its taint lives on in our father, and will infect you…”

Loss. A pang of loss so sharp it took Brünnhilde’s breath away – the mere thought of losing this ring! “How dare you! You conspire against me, wishing to take my treasure!”  She clasped the ring close to herself.  “It is mine, my love, my everything.  In your jealousy, you would steal it!”

“Oh, Brünnhilde,” Waltraute cried, clasping her hands. “Have you forgotten everything?”

“Yes,” Brünnhilde said, triumphantly. “I have cast off childish things. I am a woman, now, and not subject to girlish whims!”

It was a delight to see Waltraute run off, sobbing. The power Brünnhilde had to harm her was deep and intoxicating, and her blood pumped hot through her, warming her clothes, the metal ring.

 _I can burn your hand off_.

Brünnhilde ignored Loge’s ramblings.


	7. Chapter 7

The ring was mocking her.

She could hear it. Her brain was less fogged, now, if still _off_ and _wrong_ , but the ring was so close.  On the finger that had violated her, that had grasped the sword that had done the same, broken and defiled her, shown her what she was.  Powerless, a thing to be taken and owned.  Pains that were deep and shameful, not the lovely, proud wounds of the battlefield.

She did not sleep.

She did not sleep for many days. Betrayal upon betrayal, humiliation upon humiliation, until she found herself at the banks of the rushing Rhine.

A beautiful river, powerful and deep, a cool quenching of the fires within her. So easy to walk into it, to feel the banks fall away from her feet, to sink in so deeply, so deeply, cool and dark…

Until hands bore her to the surface again.

She did not open her eyes. “You do an unkindness by saving me,” she sighed.

More hands, gentle and strong, holding her in the flow of the current. “We ask too much of you,” voices said, laughing and babbling, splashes of clean water on rocks and roots.  “You must be strong still, stronger than Wotan and all his heroes.  You are the only one strong enough to save the world.”

“Why? Why must it be me?”

“Because it can be nobody else.” Their hands touched her more, cleaning the places where she had been hurt, cleansing the reek of Gibichungs and their stale hall, kissing the skin back into being where it had come off when he had ripped the ring from her finger.

“You bore the accursed ring,” the voices sparkled like sun on the waves. “It could not conquer you, only confuse and distract and delay, and find a weaker mind to do its bidding.  Siegfried is dead, now, and the world hangs in the balance.  An evil man may take this power, if you do not act.”

“If I do this, may I then rest?” She was tired, so tired in body and mind.

“We will take you to our bed, softer than any made by men, and you will rest there as long as you wish,” they promised. “Let us rinse the curse from the ring.”

“Then take me back to the hall,” she said, firmly. “There is a faster way.


	8. Chapter 8

_I am always at the beck and call of your family, aren’t I_.

Brünnhilde leaned into Grane’s warm, muscular neck, feeling some of the strength of the beast flowing into her, bolstering her.  “One last task, Loge.  After this, we will be gone, and you will be free.  The mortals will have you.”

He already had taken Siegfried, licked and gnawed and devoured his flesh, leaving only crumbling bones. He embraced Brünnhilde as she rode – and there was pain, but it was quick and sharp and cleansing, the pain of a blow in a battle that cleared and focused her, sharpening her, making her more powerful and more dangerous.  She was herself again, a battle-maiden, and she and Grane were a torch, bearing cleansing fire.  The ring screamed in her mind as it melted, as she burnt the Gibichung’s hall, Mime’s hut, Fafner’s lair.  She carried on, bringing fire to Valhalla, scorching and destroying it all – Fricka’s hearth, Freia’s tree, the sturdy giant-set foundations.  Wotan’s spear splintered and blackened as Loge raged, his power set free by her, the treaties and rules carved into the shaft falling to dust.

She was no longer bound.

She could return the slag of gold, limp and defeated, to the Rhinemaidens. Loge fled as they touched her, cooled her, closed her eyes, took her down, deep down, to the soft bed of the Rhine, to rest.

To the bosom of her mother.


End file.
